Preparation for Practicum in Professional Psychology: A Survey of Training Directors

The importance of practicum to the sequence of training in professional psychology is now broadly recognized, and increasing attention is being focused on ensuring the quality of practicum and its integration with academic training. A critical issue is how doctoral programs prepare graduate students for their first formal practicum placement, defined as providing direct intervention or comprehensive assessment services in a professional setting. In this survey, accredited doctoral programs in clinical, counseling, and school psychology described their required academic and clinical skills training and its timing in relation to the start of practicum and indicated their methods for assessing and assuring students' readiness for practicum. Programs in clinical and counseling psychology most commonly begin practicum in the second year (68%); this pattern is typical across training models (clinical science, scientist-practitioner, practitioner-scholar). A greater fraction (52%) of school programs start in the first year. Overall, most programs (77%) have some method to assess readiness for practicum and typically held back about 2.5% of students each year from starting practicum. Programs appear to prepare their students carefully for their first work in a professional role with the public. Results underscore the value of program reviews of their curriculum and policies in preparation for practicum, with the goal of optimizing learning in the context of responsible and ethical practice by our students. Future investigation might focus on developing consensus about best practices for practicum preparation that are tied to training outcomes.